At the Vue apartments in Beachwood, tenants launch rent strike in the wake of flooding

The Vue Beachwood February 2018

Tenants at the Vue, a high-end apartment complex in Beachwood, have launched a rent strike after a month of confusion over flooding and related problems at the three-year-old building.
(Michelle Jarboe/The Plain Dealer)

BEACHWOOD, Ohio - Fed up with bursting pipes, blatting fire alarms and what they describe as blase management, some residents at a high-end Beachwood apartment complex launched a rent strike Monday, protesting over what's been a month-long battle at the Vue.

Thirty-eight tenants or their representatives deposited their monthly checks with the Shaker Heights Municipal Court instead of the building's landlord, in a move meant to prod the owners of the 348-unit property to make repairs. Under Ohio law, rent strikes are one legal way for renters to assert their rights and react to property owners who don't fix problems quickly.

The strike at the Vue involves a minority of the residents. But it's noteworthy for a few reasons. The building, at Chagrin Boulevard and Green Road, opened only three years ago. It's billed as Beachwood's toniest rental address, with advertised rents of $1,200 to almost $4,200 a month, not including parking or storage. Residents range from young professionals to families with children to doctors, consultants, executives and real estate developers.

During a frigid stretch in early January, pipes in the fire-sprinkler system burst, flooding apartments and common areas of the building, including a resident lounge, a children's activity center and a two-level fitness center. Each break also set off the fire alarms, often late at night or early in the morning. The landlord and the property manager have been trying to figure out the source of and solutions to the problems, but portions of the building still are in disarray.

"We have been working round the clock to make all the needed repairs and meet every one of our tenants' expectations. ... So we're very disappointed that a small group of tenants decided to place their rent in escrow," Strategic Properties of North America, the New Jersey-based apartment investor that has owned the building since August 2016, wrote in a letter distributed to tenants Monday.

Residents said they're frustrated by what feels like a lack of urgency and responsiveness from the landlord and Comet Management, the residential arm of Stark Enterprises of Cleveland.

"They tried to downplay it at first," Eric Meadows, whose apartment flooded, said of the landlord and property manager. "And I'm actually glad that there were many more incidents, because I think they would have fought us on everything if it was just us that was affected."

Meadows, who is 32, and his wife, Taylor, recently joined a new tenants' association that's now 70-plus members strong. Those renters banded together last month to hire civil rights attorney Avery Friedman, who represented them during mediated talks Friday through Sunday. The parties couldn't reach an agreement, spurring the rent strike.

Strategic Properties of North America bought the Vue, at an undisclosed price, in 2016. Since early January, the landlord and its local property manager, Comet Management, have been trying to figure out and fix problems with the fire-sprinkler system in the high-profile building.Michelle Jarboe/The Plain Dealer

Friedman stood by Monday as Neil Weinberger, the president of and de facto spokesman for the tenants' group, turned in rent checks to the court. Shaker Heights Municipal Court also handles cases for Beachwood, Hunting Valley, Pepper Pike and University Heights.

During an interview, Friedman castigated the Vue's owners and managers as "utterly devoid of humanity." He said tenants he's working with want three things: The ability to break their leases without penalties, if they choose to leave; lower rent, to account for the fire-sprinkler system problems, fire alarms and the clean-up; and a clear timeline for repairs to be complete.

In the letter sent to residents, the landlord struck back, saying the mediation fell apart because of the tenants' association's financial demands.

"We'd reached agreement on every nonmonetary concern that the tenant group brought forward," the letter read. "Our interests are aligned. We want what all of our tenants want - to set the standard of luxury living in the Beachwood community. But, ultimately, that group demanded one big check be written to a group of tenants who hadn't even individually identified themselves to us. We're not going to do that."

The company said it's willing to talk one-on-one with tenants and to address their concerns.

Mediator Michael Borden, a Cleveland State University law professor and associate dean at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, wouldn't say much about the negotiations. Attorneys for the landlord and the tenants brought him into the room last week, in a bid to avoid a fight. "Both sides worked very hard," he said. "We considered a lot of creative options and listened to each other very carefully. We haven't yet reached an agreement, but it's still possible."

Shaker Heights Municipal Court Judge K.J. Montgomery hasn't scheduled a hearing on the rent dispute, but that could happen by early April. The court will hang onto the money until the disagreement is resolved through a settlement or trial.

Though some residents at the Vue are moving out, or considering it, the owners say new tenants continue to sign leases.Michelle Jarboe/The Plain Dealer

Other tenants at the Vue are considering whether to join the rent strike if it extends into March. Under state law, tenants who choose to deposit their rent must give the landlord notice of their grievances at least 30 days beforehand, in writing. And strikers must be current on their rent payments.

Common reasons for rent strikes include egregious rent hikes, utility shut-offs and poor property conditions, said Mike Foley, who led the Cleveland Tenants Organization from 1997 to 2006 and subsequently became an Ohio state representative. Since 2015, he's been Cuyahoga County's sustainability director, but he still recalls significant landlord-tenant disputes.

The resident pushback at the Vue is sizable, Foley said, but it's certainly not the largest in the state's history. In 2001, he worked with more than 700 tenants at an Olmsted Township mobile-home park called Columbia Park to strike in protest of substantial rent increases. Those renters eventually lost the case, but they formed a strong tenants' group that still exists today.

"There probably are a lot more potential opportunities for rent strikes to occur, but for the fact that tenants don't normally think about it," Foley said, noting that renters often don't understand their rights, their options or the law.

Weinberger, the tenants' association leader at the Vue, is a real estate developer and retail-property manager. He hasn't had problems with his two-bedroom apartment, which rents for more than $2,600 a month, and actually renewed his lease in December.

But he's drowning in text messages, emails and calls from anxious neighbors, including people who are sorting through insurance claims for soaked furniture and residents who are wrapping their possessions in plastic tarps, just in case.

"It's headed to just a bunch of insurance companies and lawyers fighting it out," he said.

Amid the wave of bad publicity, it's uncertain what the future holds for the Vue.

A handful of residents have moved out or are planning to move, though the owners said the apartments are more than 93 percent occupied. Comet Management arranged for residents to work out at nearby Life Time Fitness while the on-site gym is closed. A restoration contractor is making repairs, but the complete job - including whatever needs to happen to the sprinklers - might take a month, or longer.

It's still not clear whether the floods and leaks result from extremely cold temperatures, maintenance problems, management shortfalls or construction flaws. In mid-January, Comet cited a preliminary analysis of the building that pointed to "original building defects." The NRP Group, the Garfield Heights-based developer of the project, rejected that possibility.

"We cannot speak directly to the current issues described at the Vue since we have not owned or managed the building since 2016," an NRP spokeswoman wrote in an email Monday. "We stand by the quality of our construction."

Ashton Shaner and Ashley Wilcox, who moved into the building in late summer 2016, weren't unhappy with how Comet and Strategic Properties handled their first round of flooding. The couple switched apartments in January and worked through their renters' insurance to get $10,000 to replace sodden and warped furniture. The landlord gave them a month of free rent.

Then water seeped into their new bedroom closet and bathroom. It took days to find and fix the source of the leak, behind the wall, Shaner said, and workers still haven't tidied the mess.

Building systems aside, Wilcox, a 28-year-old school psychologist, says the source of the conflict at the Vue is clear: "It all, to me, seems to come down to communication."